Former Fox News “journalist” Todd Starnes regurgitates his usual lies about MRFF and the history of POW/MIA tables: “VA Medical Center Orders Bibles Removed From All Missing Man Table Displays”

Click to read the lies on ToddStarnes.com (Then read the below facts!)

The following timeline of the real history of POW/MIA tables completely debunks Todd Starnes’s lies that “Part of the display has traditionally included a Bible” and that the VA “desecrated one of the most sacred tables in America” by removing the Bible. Bibles were NOT originally included on these tables. That so-called “tradition” didn’t start until over three decades after the River Rats started the original tradition in 1967.

1967 – The POW/MIA table tradition was created by the Red River Fighter Pilots Association, an association of Vietnam combat pilots informally known as the “River Rats.” They began the tradition in May of 1967 at a meeting at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand, held by a group of pilots to discuss ways to prevent so many pilots from being shot down and captured. The original tradition created by the River Rats at this meeting did not include a Bible among the table’s items.

1985 – The American Legion passed a resolution to set a POW/MIA table at its events. In its official chaplains manual, the American Legion listed the items to be placed on the table. In keeping with the original tradition, a Bible was not among the items in the American Legion’s version. This was the version that became the standard, and is still widely used today.

1999 – The VFW Ladies Auxiliary published a script for the setting of the POW/MIA table in a 1999 issue of its magazine, adding a Bible to the table’s items. This is the earliest evidence of a Bible being added to the table.

c. 2000 – The National League of POW/MIA Families put out a script for the setting of the POW/MIA table that was almost identical to the one published in the 1999 issue of the VFW Ladies Auxiliary magazine, including the addition of the Bible. The National League of POW/MIA Families script first appeared on the organization’s website in 2000. 

This new National League of POW/MIA Families version, created over three decades after the original, Bible-free tradition was begun by the River Rats, is now wrongly thought by many to be the original tradition, and has led many to think that a Bible has always been included on POW/MIA tables and that it was the National League of POW/MIA Families that originated the tradition.

And, as for Starnes’s claim that Mikey Weinstein “went on to allege the permanent display of a Christian Bible is not even allowed in a VA chapel,” MRFF doesn’t just “allege” that; it’s in the VA’s actual regulations. VA regulations prohibit any permanent display of items of one religion in its chapels except when an actual service for the religion is taking place. The rest of the time VA facility chapels are required to be kept religiously neutral.

VHA Directive 1111, “Spiritual Care,” July 21, 2021, states (emphasis added):

9. CHAPELS AND OTHER WORSHIP FACILITIES

a. Chapels. The chapel, or a room set aside exclusively for use as a chapel, must be reserved for patients’ spiritual activities, such as: worship, prayer, meditation and quiet contemplation. Such chapels are appointed and maintained as places for meditation and worship. When VA chaplains are not providing or facilitating a religious service for a particular faith group, the chapel must be maintained as religiously neutral, meaning it cannot be viewed as endorsing one religion over another. Religious literature, content and symbols must be made readily accessible to VA patients and visitors in a chapel or Chaplain Service office at their request. The only exception to the policy on maintaining chapels as religiously neutral are the chapels at VA medical facilities which were built with permanent religious symbols in the walls or windows. In these cases, the VA medical facility Director must also designate an appropriately sized room or construct a religiously neutral chapel, which is maintained in accordance with this VHA directive and VA Space Planning Criteria …